The Great Scout Fete – 2011 What an amazing day! The final tally has been made, a few last minute adjustments with late expenses being submitted and we have a new revised profit total… The 2011 Great Scout Fete raised a total profit of $7,648. This is a fantastic result and is due to the hard work of many, many people. Thankyou to everyone who got involved. Things really kicked off on Friday night when the cakes started to arrive. The bunting had already been hung, trestles were erected and books sorted. While we didn’t have quite as many 2nd-hand donations as last year this did not have an adverse impact on our sales. In fact, Trash n Treasure was up from $905 last year to $1,015 this year. Books were up from $482 last year to $505 this year. .JPG) The buzz in the hall on Friday night was fantastic! It is fabulous to be involved in an organisation where so many of the people involved are doers. People arrived, they found a job, they rolled their sleeves up and they worked. Thankyou to everyone who came along and pitched in. Many of the tents went up on Friday night and the Venturers were there to help. Thanks to Timmy and Andrew for organising a Venturer sleepover so they were all there to help on Saturday morning with final preparations. Big thanks to Tori who despite only 3 hours sleep, along with Sammi and many enthusiastic scouts ran the face painting. They were queuing 3 and 4 deep to get a piece of the art action! .JPG) This year the Hair Braiding stall also went off. Anna and Shannan worked solidly for the 4 hours without time for a break! Just so pleased for them as last year with the weather against them they raised only $1 profit! This year they raised $164!
The BBQ was running hot all day with egg and bacon muffins sizzling early and then a steady flow of customers for sausages. The boys on the BBQ worked like maniacs. Thanks dads for your hard work. Very much appreciated. .jpg) The Bush Donuts and Fairy Floss were again popular favourites. I lost count of how many batches of batter were made and at one point I could barely slap the jam on the bread fast enough to keep up with demand. Bron’s Fairly Floss again had a steady flow of customers, although I was disappointed that Bron’s uniform didn’t include fairy wings… maybe next year? Thanks to the many scouts and venturers who helped with the donut stall. Our craft stalls were popular with Kerry Batson again heating the glue guns to create pet rocks. Not a huge money spinner with a profit this year of $90, up from $50 last year but a fabulous activity for kids to spend some time with and a memento to take away and remember the day. We upgraded to some commercial sand art this year – a shift away from Michelle Moller’s sand jars. Michelle really warmed to the sand art pictures, especially when she saw the pleasure the kids (and many of the dads) got from making them. Again not big profit with takings of $103, but a great activity. .JPG) Special mention must be given to the Cake Queens who this year transformed themselves into the Plant Gurus… Helen, Jill and Sally are a powerhouse of reliability and creativity. This year they organised and ran their two stalls without fuss. Thanks to everyone who provided cuttings for the plant stall and also to the many, many families who came along on Friday night and Saturday morning with their plates brimming with delicious baked treats. The cake stall completely sold out. In this day of mass production, the demand for hand-made goodies made with love is alive and well! Speaking of hand-made goodies, Lisa Reid and Angela Bell also managed to sell-out their stock of jams and preserves, much of which they made themselves to add to the items made at our cooking day. Thanks girls! And Penny Unsworth is another quiet achiever who baked many dozen scones. All of which sold out. Thanks Anita and Penny for your work on the Devonshire Teas – also pleasing to turn a profit this year of $216 after last year making a loss. Another stall that sold out early was the lucky jars. Kids just can’t get enough of them! They were all gone by 10.40 am. We spent a bit of money on jar contents this year in an effort to keep them going for longer but we only managed to run for about 20 minutes longer than last year. Profit on this stall - $332. New entry this year was the spiders – a popular stall and ably run by Briony in the absence of Pauline. All agreed good value for money (we want the price up to $2 next year) and a quirky offering. .jpg) Our race course was setup by Hugh Bramwells with the equipment for egg & spoon, sack and 3-legged races. The winner of the day though was the billy carts with many dads also getting involved to push their kids around the track to the finish line. We didn’t charge any money and mostly the events were self-organised. One of the many things that I love about our fete is that we provide stuff for nothing! Up there with the races in popularity was the wet sponge. Ably setup and run by Lucy Allinson with relief from Graeme Hellyer. No cost involved in running this one and raised $141. Thanks also to Hugh Bramwells whose arms were a little longer by the end of the morning from running buckets of water back outside! Our leaders worked hard in the Scout info area. Such a pleasure to see Squiggy’s smile as kids attempted to beat the beeper and Andrew oversaw the wood burning and colouring with great patience. Squiggy spoke with a number of families and handed out business cards to families who were interested in being a part of our scout group so we hope to see our membership swell. Big thanks to Jo for her work on the microphone. Her spruiking is truly professional, perhaps a career in radio would not be out of the question! Also a huge thanks to Arran Bell for setting up and running the PA system (borrowed from Sandringham Secondary College). Our raffle prizes were superb, special thanks to Biffy Dewhurst for her exquisite quilt, Angela Bell for her stunning Gingerbread House, Jill Blacker’s mum for her beautiful rug, Chris Bellamy for her gorgeous painting and Bunnings for the wheel barrow. The winner of the quilt was just beaming as she came to collect it and the handover of quilt from Biffy to the winner was quite emotional. Biffy and her team have put in countless hours to create so many gorgeous hand-made ‘fancy goods’ (we really do need to work out what your stall should be called!). Thankyou to Biffy, Di, Smac and the team of sewists who put in so, so many hours on the needle and thread both on the cooking day and in the months leading up to the fete. Your creations are just gorgeous.
A very, very big thankyou to Hugh Anderson for his amazing signs. They are just gorgeous. When I asked Hugh for some signs I was hoping for 2-3 permanent signs that we could use year after year. I provided a long list so Hugh could pick and choose what he wanted to do – but he made them all! You are just awesome Hugh – thankyou. Our money man again did an outstanding job. Thanks to Rob Lancaster who organised floats, maintained meticulous records and was able to give us a total on the day at the conclusion of pack-up. A very professional job – thanks Rob. And finally, a huge thankyou to everyone else who I haven’t mentioned above who came along and worked the stalls on Saturday. It was truly a joint effort. Many of you were there from 7am and didn’t stop until we sat down for a cold one at around 3pm and then didn’t go home until after 7pm. Thank you to everyone who helped – regardless of the duration. Every contribution was valuable and appreciated. Thanks to my family – Richard, Scott and Daniel for understanding my passion and allowing me to indulge. Love you boys.
You might have guessed by now that I just love being involved with our annual fete. It is a really special event. Not only because it raises money for our kids to enjoy better facilities and programs but because the event itself is truly special. I hope that our kids will look forward to being involved again next year and will remember the ‘Great Scout Fete’ with much fondness well into their adult life. Until next year… Karen.
More photos can be viewed in the Photo Gallery.
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